David Rogers David Rogers

Game design workshop at Hazel Green Public Library

I was given the honor of being apart of the HGPL's "Fizz, Boom, Read" summer science program.  I got to talk to a group primary school age children about game design.  We had a manageable group size of about 9 kids.  We covered basic principles of game design, we did a "jelly sandwich" building exercise, and we all made and tested board games.  

The highlight for me was watching the kids conduct a proper play testing session.  We spent an hour constructing a very simple board game about two cars racing towards a finish line, including detailed instructions on how to play.  After the construction phase, the students traded games with another group and took turns conducting a play testing sessions.  During these sessions the observing team was banned from speaking and could only take notes as they watched the other team attempt to play their game using only the written instructions.  We had more than one kid clasping his/her hands over their mouth as they watched someone play their game "wrong".  It was a good lesson to learn and all the kids seemed to learn from the experience.

The highlight for the students was, almost certainly, the jelly sandwich sandwich lab.  The students constructed rules for me to follow in constructing a jelly sandwich.  I, being a naive alien who just landed on earth and had no concept of my puny human preconceptions of sandwiches, followed their instructions literally and to the letter.  Attempt one resulted in me ripping the bread bag in half, placing the jelly jar on top of the knife, then inserting both inedible components into a bread taco.  Attempt two was more successful, but they neglected to inform me as to how I should extract the jelly from the jar, so i had to do it with my hands.

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